Page 54 - bne IntelliNews monthly magazine April 2025

54 Opinion
What did we die for?
Leonid Ragozin in Riga
In the morning on March 11, The Guardian ran an article by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak. It stated that a ceasefire in the Russo-Ukrainian war would be meaningless without security guarantees for Kyiv, more sanctions against Russia and transferring frozen Russian assets to Ukraine.
In the evening on the same day, after eight hours of negotiations with state secretary Marco Rubio and national security advisor Michael Waltz in Saudi Arabia, the same Ukrainian official agreed to endorse the American proposal which envisaged a 30-day comprehensive ceasefire without any mention of the said conditions.
Yermak also walked away from Ukraine's joint initiative with the UK and France which suggested that the ceasefire should be limited to airspace and sea. As he left the meeting, Rubio said that the ball was now in the Russian court.
Russia’s reaction came two days later and it was initially ambivalent. Putin’s foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov said that a ceasefire would only give a respite to Ukrainian forces, while Russia wants a comprehensive settlement rather than tempo- rary freezing of the conflict. But he didn’t reject the American proposal out of hand saying that it needed to be adjusted taking into account Russian interests.
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A few hours later Putin appeared before cameras to say that he was endorsing the ceasefire plan but he listed various caveats making it certain that ceasefire talks will be difficult and protracted.
The proverbial ball is thus in the American court and it is up to Trump’s administration to decide whether it wants to adjust the proposal as per Russian suggestion.
What did we die for?
The moment the Jeddah talks finished and the ceasefire proposal was announced Hungarian foreign minister Peter Szijjarto felt vindicated. “For three years, we have been urging a ceasefire and peace talks in Ukraine – only to be insulted for our stance”, he said. “Now, after three years, ceasefire and negotiations are finally being discussed. Perhaps if there had been less condemnation, hundreds of thousands fewer would have died, millions fewer would have been displaced, and the damage would be far less”.
Ever since Ukraine’s failed counter-offensive in 2023, it was only a matter of basic intellectual decency to realise that the longer this war continues, the worse the final outcome for Ukraine will be. But the pro-war lobby made both Zelensky’s administration and numerous governments in the West
too invested in delusional expectations, which is what is
Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, met with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Jeddah. He went in talking tough, but came out with a very thin agreement indeed. / bne IntelliNews
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